Hey all.
This'll just be a bit of a review for the anime Nabari no Ou.

This was probably the fastest I've ever watched a full 26 episode season series, sometime under 48 hours. It was one of those stories that sucked me in, and never got old or tired of clicking the 'next episode' button. The story itself was so-so, and actually rather hastily thrown together in the last couple of episodes, or so it seemed. But the character interactions and their actual backstories were very interesting. I found myself fascinated with the relationship between Maharo and Yoite.
As you might have guessed from theO ads, it's about ninjas. I find nowadays that anything can become comical if you throw the word 'ninja' in it; see Naruto the Abriged Comedy Spoof Series. So the first few episodes had that "lol lookit they're all ninjaz" atmosphere to it. But eventually you start paying attention to the storyline, find out that they never overuse the ninja card, and you start focusing more on the .hack//SIGN-like bits, where they accentuate on character relation, rather than focusing on the ninja action parts.
I suppose the genre of the series would fall under comedic tragedy/drama. It's definitely not a love story, and the plot is too tragic to be a funny situation all the time. There aren't any characters that you want to die (well, I lied. There's an extremely annoying secondary character. But she gets swallowed up by the earth in the second to last episode, so it's all good.) and they don't define the actual "evil people" until the waning episodes. There aren't that many suprises or twists, which is unfortunate (I love plot twists) but you can see things coming a mile away, and some of time you really don't want it to happen, which keeps the tension intact.
Overall, I found this anime very enjoyable. If I ever get even the tiniest urge to see some part of it, I'll probably end up watching the whole thing over again.

The following are just some emotions about specific things that happen, so it's full of spoiler. If you plan on watching this series or you just don't like things being revealed, please don't read this.
Every time I finish a story of any medium, I always think of the ending like a practice death. It's the end. It's not coming back. All you'll have are memories. So by now, I have for the most part gotten over the depression of a finished story, because that's just how it is. Things end. I actually prefer things to end, rather than be drug out to the nth degree (NARUTO *COUGH*) I have no problem with good people dying who deserve more and have potential. When L at last died in Death Note, I just said "FINALLY. JEEZ." I'm sure certain fangirls had a different reaction. It's the people that live life like a husk, only waiting for death, and finally find a joy or love in life just as their knot of vitality is about undone, that really make me sad. As I said before, the story lets you see things coming a mile away. The rare and unseen emotional half of me was hoping dearly that they would let Yoite live, and be bestest buddies with Miharu forever and ever and la-de-la-de-da. Unfortunately, the other logical half of me, which is much more often correct and present, knew that the storytellers couldn't possibly let Yoite live in the end. They did do a nice thing though, pretty much the entire last episode was just all about being nice to Yoite. Again, not very emotional here, but seeing him smile and happy after 25 episodes of dragging him through the gutter of emo was good for me. By the time he died at the end of the last episode (and they did a really tragic scene, having Miharu return to a chair where Yoite's clothes went Obi-Wan on him) I was suprised how worked up I was getting. Not crying or nothing, just upset. Most of me was glad that something this bad in this exact context couldn't happen in real life, but a small, selfish bit kinda wanted it to happen because I was getting more emotional about a forseeable death in fiction than I did in real life, which really throws my mental balance into perspective. That freaked me a bit. So I thought about it, and I figured out why, and came to a terrible but true conclusion. I won't say it though. But even after coming to the conclusion, I'm still in a very deep funk. I'm already watching it over, and all day today I've been too depressed to do anything else except sit around and be depressed, which is rare. I hope I get over this soon, but I have a feeling it's gonna linger for a while.

WHY IS EVERYBODY IN THIS SHOW A FUCKING NINJA?!

-Ryu